6 ways to put pumpkin on your menu
While breaking down a whole pumpkin and cooking it from scratch might sound a little overwhelming, Jason Devriendt is confident that you’ve got this. He is a farmer and one of the owners of Devriendt Farm Products in Goffstown. You just have to pick the right variety of pumpkin, he said, which probably isn’t the kind you carved for Halloween.
“Jack-o’-lantern pumpkins are a much older variety,” Devriendt said. “They kind of started it all. Nowadays, we obviously have eating pumpkins. The main difference is that the content of sugars an eating pumpkin will produce is going to be significantly higher. You can still eat jack-o’-lantern pumpkins. They’re just going to be very, very bland.”
“One of the biggest names [of eating pumpkins] is a style called cheese pumpkins. We grow a particular variety of it called Long Island Cheese and it’s a squatter, tan color squash pumpkin. They boast an even higher sugar content than even sugar pumpkins. Supposedly the flesh of those smooths out a lot more in the cooking process. It breaks down better. The average cheese pumpkins get larger than a sugar pumpkin. I’d probably say somewhere in the 10- to 15-pound range, whereas your average sugar pumpkin is going to be anywhere between three to five pounds.”
On the other hand, there is no shame in using canned pumpkin. For Amy Casella, the owner-operator of Crumbs on Cambridge in Bedford, canned pumpkin is her default ingredient. “Truthfully, I don’t break down pumpkins,” she said. “It’s just too time-consuming for me, so I’ll go after the organic canned pumpkin and I think it’s lovely. The flavor is good, the texture is good.”
Pumpkin to Drink
One of To Share Brewing’s most popular seasonal beers is something called Sophisticated Pumpkin, but co-owner and brewer Aaron Share says he had to be talked into offering it.
“When we first opened [the brewery], I was very resistant to the idea of making a pumpkin beer,” Share said. “I made pumpkin beers as a home brewer, but I just didn’t think it was something that folks would really enjoy, because it just had a lot of pumpkin. And so after a couple years of [my staff] insisting that we make a pumpkin beer I finally caved and told them that I was going to do it my way. It wasn’t going to be overly sweet. So what I did is I used our Vienna lager recipe and we add 40-something pounds of pumpkin to our mash. We add just a touch of pumpkin pie spice and we add some bourbon-soaked vanilla to it to just give it some added flavor and sophistication. So it’s a little more upscale than I would say some of the ones out there that are made with mostly sugar.”
Because even his pumpkin beer has some sweetness to it, Share suggests pairing it with other sweet foods. “I would go with something a little bit more robust in flavor. Maybe something like a pumpkin ravioli or something like that. Or even if you’re just snacking on a piece of pumpkin bread or something, I think it would stand up to that. Even something like a Boston cream pie could pair nicely with it.”
Bourbon Pumpkin Smash
This cocktail will help you ease into the holiday season. Even with a bunch of complementary flavors, the pumpkininess shines through.
- 2 ounces pumpkin syrup (See below. You’ll have to make it yourself, but like all syrups it is almost embarrassingly easy to make.)
- 2 ounces bourbon – there are several strong flavors at play here, so probably don’t use your very best bourbon for this
- ½ ounce orange juice
- Several dashes of orange bitters – this is to offset the sweetness of the other ingredients. Use your best judgment
- Ginger beer to top – not ginger ale. Ginger beer. You want the spicy bite of the good stuff.
Combine the pumpkin syrup, bourbon, orange juice and bitters in a cocktail shaker, then dry shake it (without ice) for several seconds, before adding ice and shaking it again. This is to prevent the syrup from seizing up when it hits the ice.
Strain over fresh ice in a large rocks glass, and top with a couple ounces of ginger beer.
Pumpkin Syrup
- ½ cup (156 g) maple syrup – the real stuff, please
- ⅓ cup (75 g) water
- ⅓ cup (75 g) pumpkin puree
- ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- a pinch of sea salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Add all the ingredients but the vanilla to a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer over low heat for two to three minutes to make sure all the ingredients have gotten to know each other.
Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. (Vanilla is very volatile. It won’t explode or anything, but it evaporates easily and takes some flavor with it.)
Not for nothin’, but if you’re a pumpkin spice fan this is great in your coffee.
Pumpkin with Chocolate
Given its distinctive flavor, pumpkin pairs surprisingly well with a wide variety of other distinctive flavors — brown butter, whiskey (particularly bourbon), “warming” spices like ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper, almost every type of nut, and of course chocolate.
Brown butter pumpkin chocolate chip cookies
If you were to tell people that you were field-testing pumpkin recipes, a shocking number of them, a truly startling percentage, would try very, very hard to give you their recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
These cookies hit several of pumpkin’s sweet spots: brown sugar, chocolate, and brown butter. While theoretically there is probably a baked good somewhere that would not be improved by the use of brown butter, this is not one of them. The caramelized milk solids bring a rich, almost savory flavor that stands up to the pumpkin’s muskiness. A pinch of citric acid balances out the brown butter’s heaviness and gives these cookies a mouth-watering quality.
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter
- ¼ cup (50 g) dark sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 6 Tablespoons (86 g) pumpkin puree
- 1½ cups (188 g) all-purpose or white whole wheat flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt – I like kosher salt or coarse sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon citric acid (optional – the odds of your having a bag of citric acid hanging around in your pantry are admittedly low)
- 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ cup (90 g) semisweet or dark chocolate chips
Brown the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Wait until it has stopped foaming, then watch it like a hawk until it turns the color of dark toast, then remove it from the heat and let it cool for a couple of minutes.
In a large bowl, combine the powdery ingredients — the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, citric acid and spices. Set it aside. Mutter “Your time will come” to it.
With a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the brown butter and the sugars until they are as combined as you can get them, about three minutes. Add the vanilla and keep beating. Add the pumpkin and keep beating until it is fluffy and looks like caramel frosting.
Turn your mixer to low, to prevent the poofing of flour, and spoon the dry ingredients into the mixture until everything is barely combined. Stir the chocolate chips in by hand. Cover the dough and chill it in your refrigerator for at least half an hour.
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Flatten tablespoonfuls of the chilled dough onto the palm of your hand. Roll it into a ball, then flatten it, and place it on a parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet. Arrange six of the disks on the sheet, then bake for 12 to 13 minutes.
Let the cookies cool completely before removing them from the pan. This recipe will make between 15 and 18 cookies, so you’ll be making three batches. Remember to keep the remaining cookie dough in the fridge between batches.
Pumpkin as Soup
Because it pairs so well with sweet ingredients, it’s easy to forget how well pumpkin works in savory dishes. Perhaps the most popular savory application for pumpkin is as a soup. For super ambitious hosts, serving pumpkin soup from a hollowed out pumpkin, or individual servings in baby pumpkins, is a Show-Stopping Number. But if you have too much drama in your life already, pumpkin soup is a Tier 1 Comfort Food.
Curried Coconut Pumpkin Soup
- 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
- ¼ teaspoon chili oil (optional)
- 1 small or ½ large white or yellow onion, diced
- 1 to 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 Tablespoon pickled jalapenos, minced
- 1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon garam masala or sweet curry powder
- 1 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree
- 1 15-ounce can of coconut milk
- 1 cup of broth – I like vegetable broth, but chicken or turkey broth would work well too
- salt and pepper to taste
- roasted pumpkin seeds and chopped cilantro for garnish
In a large saucepan, fry the onions, garlic and jalapeños in the two oils until the onions turn translucent and start to pick up a little color. You’re not looking for full caramelization here, but some light browning will bring extra flavor to the finished soup.
Stir in the garam masala and let the mixture cook for a minute or so, until your kitchen starts to smell spicy. Stir in the pumpkin and let the mixture cook for another few minutes, then add the broth and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and let it cook for a few minutes.
Either transfer the soup to a blender or use an immersion blender to puree it until smooth. Season it with salt and pepper, then serve garnished with cilantro and pumpkin seeds.
Pumpkin in Bread
Pumpkin bread and its affiliates, pumpkin muffins, are fall classics.
“Once you get into this, your fall season, everybody wants pumpkin and apple,” baker Amy Casella said. One reason for pumpkin bread’s popularity, she speculated, is that it makes even novice bakers look good.
“If you’re using canned pumpkin,” she said, “it has a ton of moisture, so even if you overcook [pumpkin bread or muffins] it’s very forgiving.”
Pumpkin bread with crystalized ginger and a bourbon glaze
The conventional raisins have been replaced in this recipe by crystallized ginger — the spicy cubes that have the same texture as gummy candies. This gives the pumpkin bread pops of flavor, in contrast to raisins, which are, shall we say, more introverted in the way they present themselves. While the boozy glaze is not strictly necessary, it improves the already delicious pumpkin by at least 15 percent.
- 1 package (about 16 ounces) boxed yellow cake mix
- 2 cups (one 16-ounce can) pumpkin puree
- ⅓ cup (113 g) molasses
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg – Seriously, if you’ve never grated nutmeg yourself, you’ve been missing out. The whole nutmeg kernels never go stale (as opposed to the pre-ground version, which turns to sawdust within a month or two) and smell almost citrusy. If you don’t have a microplane grater, use the smallest side of your box grater, the one you’ve always wondered what it was for. It’s for this.
- ⅓ cup (38 g) chopped nuts (optional) – I like pecans for this, but if the idea of nuts in baked goods angers you, I totally understand.
- ⅓ cup (57 g) crystalized ginger, chopped
- Bourbon glaze – see below
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Empty the cake mix into a large mixing bowl, and toss the ginger pieces in it. This will keep the ginger from clumping together. Add in the rest of the ingredients and beat the mixture for about two minutes.
Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how big your loaf pans are. (Check them with a toothpick at 45 minutes.) Let them cool before depanning them. Drizzle them with bourbon glaze.
You can make this recipe as muffins. Remember to use liners in your muffin tin, and check doneness at 20 minutes.
Bourbon Glaze
- 2 cups (227 g) powdered sugar
- 5 Tablespoons bourbon – again, use some that tastes good, but don’t break out the premium stuff
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ½ teaspoon milk or half & half
- a pinch of salt
- 1 Tablespoon melted butter – aside from being delicious, this will help the glaze set and keep it from dripping off your bread or muffins
Mix everything together, adding the butter last, then drizzle over anything that needs to be drizzled — in this case the pumpkin bread, but I can’t help thinking this would be great with grilled pork chops.
Pumpkin Contributes to Granola
If you’ve never thought much about pumpkin seeds outside of field-dressing a jack-o’-lantern, you can find the roasted, salted variety in the seed-and-nut section of your supermarket, sometimes called pepitas.
In this granola recipe, pumpkin seeds fill the role usually played by chopped nuts. Much like pumpkin, they get along with an impressive number of other ingredients. In this case the addition of soy sauce and black pepper will play off their sweet/savory nature and add complexity to the final granola.
- 2½ cups (263 g) rolled oats
- ¾ cups (75 g) roasted, salted pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
- ¼ cup (37 g) poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or a mixture of both
- 3 Tablespoons dark brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup (50 g) vegetable oil
- ⅓ cup (104 g) dark maple syrup, the real stuff
- 2 teaspoon soy sauce
- ¾ cup (127 g) dried, sweetened cranberries
Preheat your oven to 300°F.
In the largest bowl you have, combine the oats, seeds, sugar and spices, and toss them with your hands. Separately, mix the oil, syrup and soy sauce, then pour the mixture over the dry ingredients. Combine everything — again, with your hands. (You could theoretically use a spatula or something, but hands work better.)
Scoop the mixture onto a baking sheet, spread it out, and press it into the corners.
Bake the proto-granola for 15 minutes, then stir it up and press it back down into the pan. This time you will probably need to use a spatula or a large spoon; it will be too hot for your hands. Bake for another 15 minutes, then remove from the oven.
Let the granola cool. Hopefully there will be some clumps. Mix in the cranberries.
Ta-dah.
Pumpkin Made Fancy
Pumpkin soufflé is one of those dishes that can seem very intimidating. That also means it brings a lot of street cred if you can pull it off.
But here’s the secret: It’s easy to pull off. Just follow the instructions, one at a time. The final soufflé will be light and delicious.
- ½ cup (113 g) whole milk or half & half
- 1 Tablespoon corn starch
- ½ teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg – see the pumpkin bread recipe for a diatribe about this
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
- ⅛ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- a pinch of salt
- 2 Tablespoon dark brown sugar
- 2 cups (one 16-ounce can) pumpkin puree
- 1 Tablespoon orange liqueur – Grand Marnier is a classic for this, but orange curacao or even triple sec will work
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- zest of a large orange
- 8 egg whites
- ¾ cup (150 g) white sugar
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Thoroughly butter the inside of a soufflé dish, the ceramic one with vertical ridges on the outside. Really slather the butter on. Then dust the buttered surface with white sugar. Set the dish aside.
In a small saucepan, combine the milk or cream, the cornstarch and the spices, and bring to a simmer. It should thicken considerably. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.
Stir in the salt, brown sugar, pumpkin, orange liqueur, vanilla and orange zest. Mix thoroughly and set aside.
Using the whisk attachment on your stand or hand mixer, beat the egg whites until they reach “soft peaks.” This means they’ve turned white and are slightly thickened. Mix the sugar into the egg whites and whip on high speed, until they reach “stiff peaks.” This means, if you turn the bowl sideways or upside down, they stay put.
OK, this is the closest this recipe gets to tricky. Don’t panic. Drink a slug of the orange liqueur, if you have to.
Add about a third of the stiff egg whites to the pumpkin mixture, and stir to combine. This is just to lighten up the batter. Add half of the remaining egg whites to the pumpkin bowl and gently fold them into the mixture. This means to mix it super-gently so you don’t deflate the fluffy egg whites. (If you are nervous about this, search online for a video: “how to fold egg whites.” It’s actually very simple.) When the egg whites are folded in, do the same with the remaining egg whites.
Transfer the eggy pumpkin mixture to the soufflé dish. Put it on the middle rack in your oven and bake for 30 minutes. When it is done it will have risen above the rim of the dish and will be a golden brown color.
As soon as you take the soufflé out of the oven, take a picture of it. Within the next 10 minutes or so it will deflate and will not look as awe-inspiring. But it will still be delicious.
